Introducing RI Magazine

The debut issue of Robert Irvine Magazine is now available as a free download at RobertIrvineMagazine.com At the site, you’ll be able to get it as an ePub for iBooks or similar ebook reader, as an interactive PDF, or you’ll have the option to read it online at issuu.com.

Here’s the cover:

The May issue features a ton of great content—from healthy recipes, workouts, and general health advice to features on Gary Sinise’s work with wounded veterans, a behind-the-scenes look at Season 2 of Food Network’s All-Star Academy, and an in-depth interview with documentary filmmaker Chris Bell.

RI Magazine will publish digitally 10 times per year—monthly with double issues in the summer and winter.

As I said in my previous post, it had been a dream of mine to work at Muscle & Fitness and it would take a lot to get me away from there. Working for Robert Irvine is one of the few things that could get me to give up M&F, but as excited as I was to join his team, I didn’t realize how rewarding it could be. Today, with the release of a debut issue which contains so much content that I feel passionate about, presented without bias or restriction, it feels rewarding in ways I hadn’t anticipated—and it gives me even further validation that I made the right move.

There are a lot of things in this magazine that I simply couldn’t do at M&F. I’ll give you a prime example: the interview with Chris Bell. Some readers might think it’s a little too long, but to me, it’s just as long as it’s supposed to be. I didn’t have to cut 2,000 words from it because there was only room for one page, as was often the case at M&F and is usually the case with any print publication with limited space. A digital magazine isn’t bound by arbitrary page counts. Of course, you have to be judicious with how you use that blank slate, but I think going a little bit longer than usual is better than teasing a piece of content and then throwing the rest onto a website. Over the years at M&F I slashed thousands of words from countless interviews to fit them for space. Some great material never saw the light of day as a result. Suffice it to say I think things are better this way.

There’s more to it than just being able to run pieces as long as I see fit. The cover story on the Gary Sinise Foundation—which builds specially-adapted smart homes for wounded veterans—is devoid of any fitness angle. It’s a pure human interest piece and it felt great to get back to that kind of writing, which I haven’t done since I worked at a small daily paper in Vermont.

About

They say if you really love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. That certainly holds true for me. As General Manager of Chef Robert Irvine’s new digital magazine, I have the creative freedom to make the kind of magazine that I’ve always wanted to read. Previously, as Deputy Editor of Muscle & Fitness Magazine, I had the opportunity to go places, meet people, and write the kind of stories I only used to dream about. I have this website so I can share some of my favorite stories that I’ve written throughout my career, which spans Robert Irvine’s new magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, the Bennington Banner daily newspaper in Vermont, and the now-defunct (but once exceptional) Blitz magazine. I’m also a freelance gaming journalist, and I post those stories here as well.

I also want to share a look behind the scenes, and while I do most of this through social media—you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @mctuthill—this site allows me the forum to write about the experience of some of these assignments, and share some behind-the-scenes videos.

There are a lot of other places you could be out on the interwebs. Thanks for taking some time to stop by.